Steven Goddard
Steven Goddard is an alumnus of Norwich University of the Arts who makes mixed media work exploring patriarchal ideology and memory. Working with the self and with readymade materials, above all paper, the most basic of materials, he uses his creative responses to challenge the centralised world view, which he sees as a marginalising force working against our wellbeing. He hopes that anyone looking at his work will first enjoy, or puzzle over, its visual impact, and then be reminded that things are not always as they appear on the surface or at first sight.
He has exhibited at Free Range in London, The Bank in Eye, Cromer Artspace in Cromer and Anteros in Norwich.
Artist Statement
I enjoy making discoveries, gaining new insights that lead to otherwise not thought of investigations in my practice.
My work can be quite diverse. For example, I have just finished a mixed media collage (When Orlando met the Gypsies). This work has been inspired by reading Orlando and the landscape in which I read it. It is not a landscape, though, but an emotional response to place, feelings of displacement and oscillation. Also, I have recently been playing with 3D ideas. These have grown out of older projects and some of the many paintings I have unfinished about my studio space. Nothing is sacred, in that I reuse and reinvent my work all the time. I like to learn and feel my way through making, and this is an exciting new approach for me. In addition, I make short stop motion videos, and I am a constant ideas/sketch booker and love working with paper, collage and paint. This is a very important part of my practice and can also double up as a kind of visual journaling.
The sketchbooks are a kind of bridge for me between two strands of my work that call for separate approaches and lines of enquiry, as they help to separate the more personal from the fun, outward, playful parts of my practice. This is also why I use two separate Instagram accounts. There are times when the two approaches merge, and I think that over time my work will reach a stage where my practice is seen as one entity.
In summary, through creative thinking and being open to discovery through play, I like to challenge while keeping to a largely joyful aesthetic.
